Louis De Belle studied at the Politecnico di Milano (BA) and Bauhaus–Universität Weimar (MFA) and now lives between Berlin and Milano.
His works have been published by the likes of The Washington Post, Libération and The Independent. His photographs have been exhibited in festivals, galleries and museums, including The Royal Albert Hall in London and the KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin. He published Failed Dioramas (2015), Besides Faith (2016) and Disappearing Objects (bruno, 2018). His series Cartographies has been included by Joel Meyerowitz and Colin Westerbeck in the latest edition of Bystander: A History of Street Photography (Lawrence King Press).
Through his photographic attitude, and the meticulous character of the resulting images, he tries to give a new perspective on topics we deal with on everyday base without paying care.
About ‘Disappearing Objects’ – words by ‘Louis De Belle’:
Disappearing Objects is a photographic series on magician’s secret tools. Italian photographer Louis De Belle collected from illusionists and collectors over 30 tiny artefacts, which are usually concealed in the magician’s hand during the performance of their act. The resulting project consists of a serial presentation on a stark background, which encourages the viewers to question their own personal relationship to the objects. These unrecognizable things come into focus as possessing an ostensible function by way of levers, switches, small pulleys, and other minor technologies that are fused with anthropomorphic representations of something ultimately familiar – our body.
The photographic series was then published by bruno in the eponymous monograph, where De Belle presents these photographs hidden between the pages of a short fictional story by American writer Jordan Hruska where the protagonist must confront the subjectivity that overtakes her position of material objectivity. The story explores this shift in perspective – a disassociation between a stored knowledge of the object and its representation.
